I must confess, when people ask me to pray for them, I am reluctant to agree to do so. My reasons are simple: I don’t know what they want. I don’t know what they need. And I seriously doubt that I will be able to give them either.
And I often wonder if, perhaps because I am a minister, because I have a “Rev” in front of my name (or in back of my name as is the case in my community), that maybe they think my prayers are more valuable, more effective than their own. And I know that that just ain’t true.
To be honest, I don’t know much about prayer at all.
I do know that I am not comfortable with what John Shelby Spong calls “phony and pious God-talk, made up of one religious cliché after another” (Here I Stand) that I assume most people expect from me. (Though I imagine this assumption is gravely wrong.)
And yet, I also believe that there is some sort of power in people joining together, sharing the concerns of their hearts and minds with one another, and perhaps lifting them up to God, to the Universe, or to That Which Is More Than... Which is why, though hesitant to pray for someone, I am very willing to pray with them.
Over the next few days, I will be exploring questions about the nature, the necessity, and the efficacy of prayer.
I invite you to join in the conversation.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Human communication is something that is much more complex than simply the words we say. It involves our words, our expression, our gestures. It involves sharing our internal states and trying to understand the internal states of another. It involves relationship, feedback, processing multiple channels of information at once, noticing important changes or breakdowns in the process -- and modifying our actions to re-establish the regulation, the relationship. In many respects, it is much more like a dance than it is a recitation of words.
And that's how I think about prayer. It's a process of relationship, of dancing with God.
When someone asks me to pray for them I usually say no. I will pray with you and agree in prayer with you but I am not a messenger service for God. Don't get me wrong I do intercede for people but as a pastor my challenge is to assist people to mature in Christ. When we agree to pray with out some direction or partnership we enable their dysfunctional relationship with God instead of helping them to grow into maturity. THeir relationship with God can be enhanced when they are forced, encouraged and taught to pray for themselves.
Post a Comment